Ok, first of let me thank all those who have entered into this page. You are all brave souls. And let me appologize for the long post.

Ok, here is the situation. I am considering doing one of two things with my 89 Formula. The first thing is invest some money into it to give it a little more power and grip. The second would be to sell her in favor of a more economical car, (GASP!!!). I know, I know, I too shuder at the thought. But I have to be reallistic.

I use my formula as a daily driver now with the stock L03. What I need is a car that gets reasonable gas mileage, is reliable, and has all the smog **** intact and working. Right now that is the perfect example of my formula. But here is my problem. My car is just too slow. It pains me to drive her because I know the car she could be, but isn't. Now I'm not looking for break neck speed here, but would like to know the power is there if I wanted or needed to use it.

With that said I pose this question to you, the enlightened experts(cough cough). With a budget of about $1500 for engine mods, is there a way to add decient power to my TBI, while still maintaining streetability, mileage, reliability, and emissions? I want a fast car, but don't want to drive an all out race car everyday.

But wait, there's more. All this will be done to my 305. I would like some parts to be usable with a 350 or 327, but that would not happen for a minimum of 5 years from now, so this is a minor consideration.
No NO2. The reason for this is, If I keep her, I'm gonna race her. But I will be doing autoX. Plus, first and formost, this will be my daily driver, so I don't need melted pistons.

I have put some thought into this and think that the best way to go would be to replace the topend with aftermarket parts and free up the exaust. But I have no idea on how to do that and stay within my budget. If I keep the car now, I will keep her forever. Can you help save the Formula? Thanks

Woops, I forgot my sig.

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1989 Firebird Formula L03
Stock except for K&N, Flowmaster, Centerforce Clutch, MSD 8.5, and Accel Cap and Rotor.
87k on the clock and running smooth.

Hmmm, good questions. You've got a good start, it sounds like the cars been well maintained. I can recommend 2 very simple, basic (read: CHEAP) mods you can make now.
The car as it is probably has a problem revving to the red, and still making power, right? To remedy part of this, without going too deep into the engine, or your wallet, start with a new coil. Accel makes a coil especially for remote mount HEI coil cars, that will put out way more voltage than the stocker. This will help a little now, and will help a lot when the more serious mods come.
Minor bolt on #2 would be everyone's favorite TBI mod, the open element aircleaner. You said you have a K&N. If it's not already an open element, you should probably just scrap it. Pay Summit $40 for it's chrome, non-drop 14" X 3" reusable setup. Snuf has a good step-by-step on his website about the install.
Good luck, hopefully somebody else will add more.

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No guts, no glory.

Thanks for the reply. I will look into the new coil. I might be able to get a MSD 6a for free, so all I would need would be the adapter cable. If I put that on a new coil will go with it. Do you guys think it is worth using the 6a? I have heard good and bad about them. As for the air flow, I was thinking about investing in the cowl induction setup. Several reasons for this, it would be good braging rights, still sound good, and should supply the extra air I would need. What do you guys think?

I bought a harwood cowl scoop off of jegs for 70 bucks. I plan on installing it in a little while, after I sand down the hood (in the middle of a paint project). Best bang for the buck mod you could do to get what you want is finding a turbo car, (a little 2.2l chrystler le baron turbo would work, or a 2.3l t-bird supercoupe) buying the turbo setup off of it, and installing it. It wouldn't be easy but the difference would be well worth it. I have seen setups offered around 150 bucks, and I plan to do this myself after I get my body and interior straight. How many 91 L03-TT's do you know of?



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91BanditII305TBI
K&N Filtercharger + X-Stream Lid
Flowmaster 80 Series Muffler
Subframe Connectors
Harwood Cowl Induction Scoop

Use the $1500 to buy a cavalier and then later do whatever you want to the formula since the cavalier gets 28mpg+ in bad tune.

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1989 Pontiac Firebird Formula LO3 Auto
-180 degree stat
-Hooker Cat-Back
-velcro t-top bag
-Wonder Bar from my IROC
*****Possible future mods*****
4th gen seats, fiberglass spoiler, new paint

1985 IROC-Z, TPI Auto
-Accel Super Coil


http://www.geocities.com/krt80/

Check out what vortec heads can do on that L03. I scanned these from my sport truck mag. www.bharris.org/camaro Essentially take Vortec L31 heads shave .045 off of them to make the combustion chamber compatible with 305. Run a pretty decent cam and made 320hp. If you sacrifice some of that new horsepower by not getting too aggressive with the timing you should still be able to run 87 octane gas and get in the 260+ horsepower range and not hurt gas mileage to much. There are several guys running the GM Crate 330hp engines which are Vortecs and getting 23mpg. 260hp is 90 more than an L03 which should make it MUCH faster.

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91 Camaro RS 5.0L Black Convertible 700R4
** Added so far **
*GM Wonderbar
*Alston SFC
*Turbo City Inj Spacer
*Dual Snorker Air Filter
Please Visit www.bnhtoys.com and www.bharris.org

The coil and 6A are a waste of money at this point. The stock ignition is fine.

Exhaust, headers, cat, cam, heads, intake Not nessesarily in that order either.

If you are a savy shopper and buy some used stuff, I bet you can get most of those things for $1500.

Hmm, I'm not too sure if a cowl hood is going to give you the bang for the buck you're looking for. It'll look great, and will help the engine breath cold air, but it's a bit of overkill right now. I don't think you're going to see a difference. This is where you decided whether "going" or "showing" is your priority. I suggested the coil because it will also help the MPG. I can't comment on the 6A, I don't know much about MSD, sorry.
BrHarris is right about the heads, getting the vortecs should be a priority.
Brent is right about buying things used, it's a good way to save money. BUT, don't buy used headers! I've had too many friends bitten by warped flanges and rusted tubes. Pay the bucks for new.

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No guts, no glory.

Wow, there is a lot of good advice here.

First, A turbo? Thought about that and then wonderd how reliable a turbo conversion would be on my car. Not very I thought, so no can do on the turbo. Plus the turbo's wouldn't be very effective with the stock exaust and intake and engine, well I guess just the whole thing. Too restrictive.

Second, while buying a $1500 car would let me work on the formula at will, how would I afford insurance for both. I know, your gonna say, take the bird off the road for a while. But then I will be just driving a $1500 piece, instead of the formula I get to see every day in the driveway. I don't think I can handle such torture. Can you blame me?

Third. I will have to look into the vortec heads. I have heard some about them but not much. Are those a better choice than say the S/R 305's. I know the S/R's are the best as far as flow, which makes power, but how much better are the vortec's? Also, I will have to have my emissions equipment hooked up. Do vortec heads stop me from doing that? How much power do you think I can get out of a vortec head 305 with say the lt1 cam or simmilar and full exaust? You said about 250 right. Is that flywheel or rearwheel? I will do more research.

Anyway, I was thinking about what NTChrist said about the cowl hood. When I do the mods, I'm going to do them all at once. So I will go from stock to rock. I think if anything the cowl system will limit the air going into my car. But that is why I'm asking questions.

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1989 Firebird Formula L03
Stock except for K&N, Flowmaster, Centerforce Clutch, MSD 8.5, and Accel Cap and Rotor.
87k on the clock and running smooth.

I think my cavalier was $150 or $120 more every 6 months.

Sharp Corner, I scanned another article. It is now article 2 on the www.bharris.org/camaro page. They took an 80k mile Camaro LG4 and put the vortec and the SR305 heads and it shows their Dyno results. The spent right at your $1500 mark on their engine that runs a steady 300hp on 89 octane. Should work great in a TBI car. Will need to change out the fuel pump to a Walbro 255lph. To keep up with it though.

About the Vortech heads. I think that the will perform pretty close to what the S/R 305's will do. I think that for a moderate 305, the Vortecs (milled 0.045" for a 58cc chamber) will do fine. There's been a lot of discussion about the Vortecs and emissions, just check the old posts. Whatever cam you go with, make sure it's not a single pattern. Vortecs need a lot of exhaust duration and lift. Sometimes, the GM cams have as much as 10* more duration on the exhaust side. Good indicator. The vortecs also flow best approaching 1/2" lift, so go with taller lobes than usual. Unfortunately, this means buying new valve springs.
I can't comment for sure on the cowl hoods, but, in theory they should work fine. How much they ACTUALLY do might be different. Unless you need the hood clearance, I'd recommend saving your money.
Yeah, that turbo thing... Not too sure what CS4th was thinking. Sounds like too small of a turbo for the bother.

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No guts, no glory.

The stock L31 cam specs are 191id/196ed @ .050" lift. Thats only 5 degrees. The L31 also runs exhaust manifolds not headers. It doesn't look to me like the exhaust needs too much of a crutch.

There are some interesting points about split duration cams on isky's site you may want to look at.

The 330 horse GM crate engine (equipped with Vortec heads) uses 212* on the intake and 222* on the exhaust. Coincidentally, that subtracts to 10*. The Ram Jet crate engine uses 196* on the intake and 207* on the exhaust. This engine also uses the Vortec heads. This equates to 11* difference.
The stock L31 cam is different, but what fun is stock?
The Isky site talks about dual patterns being bad for OVAL racing. The author admits that most of the opinions are speculation, when it comes to drag racing. Oddly enough, Isky still sells dual pattern cams for 3/8 mile oval racing. Hmmm...
Go with a dual pattern cam.
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No guts, no glory.

[This message has been edited by NTChrist (edited May 15, 2001).]